Queen’s Jubilee

August 6, 2013

A celebration of ten years of Queen Jennah’s rule is about to kick off in Divinity’s Reach! The queen has commissioned a new gladiatorial arena for the occasion—the Crown Pavilion—as a shining symbol of her people’s endurance.

Take a hot air balloon ride with dignitaries from across Tyria to the capital of the Krytan nation, and be there for the opening ceremony. Join in the festivities and compete in ceremonial combat in Her Majesty’s honor!

Events

Developer Livestream – August 5

Enjoy an early look at the Queen’s Jubilee release with ArenaNet devs during the preview livestream on our Twitch channel on Monday, August 5 at 12PM PDT.

Hot Air Balloons – Begins August 6

Need a lift to Divinity’s Reach? The Queen’s court has sent out hot air balloons to transport celebrants! Find one of these balloons out in the open world, and use it to find the party in short order.

The Opening Ceremony – Begins August 6

In honor of her Jubilee, Queen Jennah is opening a new gladiatorial arena! Attend the dedication of the Crown Pavilion arena and watch its inaugural contest!

Ignite the Beacons – Begins August 6

Special Beacons of Kryta, symbols of humanity’s hope, have been set up in Divinity’s Reach. Take a torch from a torchbearer, then race around a course to light all of the Beacons of Kryta!

Enter the Crown Pavilion – Begins August 6

Test yourself in an entirely new mini-zone featuring mighty representations of humanity’s enemies. By representing various cities of Tyria, you can be named champion of a nation and gain access to unique reward vendors.

Fight in the Queen’s Gauntlet – Begins August 6

In the special Queen’s Gauntlet, you will face increasingly difficult challenges of single-combat against unique bosses. Cheer on your friends or show off your skills to the world. Take a risk with special gambit conditions to earn even more prestigious rewards!

New Rewards

Watchwork Mechanisms

Watchwork tech is the latest and greatest innovation in Tyria. Watchwork parts can be used in new crafting recipes or as currency in the Crown Pavilion to buy items like new rune and sigil recipes, or the new Sovereign Weapon Set. You might even find the recipe to assemble a Watchwork Portal Device, allowing you to create a personal portal!

Mini Watchknight

Once you complete the Queen’s Jubilee meta achievement, you’ll receive a miniature Watchknight, modeled after the Queen’s new mechanical sentinels, to follow you into battle.

A Guide to Queen’s Jubilee

Want to know how to get started? Check out our spoiler-free mini-guide to this release!

New Gem Store Items

Royal Terrace Pass

Get two weeks of unlimited access to the Royal Terrace, where you’ll find gates to other capital cities, crafting stations, merchants, and a magician!

Jubilee Mask Skins

Celebrate in style with three new mask skins – the Mask of the Queen, Crown, or Jubilee – that can be applied to headgear of any armor weight!

Permanent Finishers

Make your enemies rue the day they met you with one of our new Permanent Finishers! Use the Cow, Spectrew, Thornroot, or Whump the Giant Finishers to trounce your enemies with flair.

Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic

The new Salvage-o-Matic has a 10% chance of salvaging rarer materials and a 20% chance of recovering upgrades. This chatty salvage kit consumes just three copper per salvage and is guaranteed to never break down.

New Features

Account Wallet for Currency

Keep all of your currencies in one easy-to-find location! This Wallet holds dungeon tokens, coins, karma, laurels, Guild Commendations, Fractal Relics, Badges of Honor, gems, and glory and makes them accessible to any character on your account. Upon logging in with each unique character for the first time after the Wallet has gone live, that character will have all of their currencies deposited into the account-wide collection.

PvP Solo Queue

Solo Arena matches allow you to get right into the action of PvP matches in a competitive environment without gathering a full team or finding yourself fighting against a pre-formed group. Solo Arena has its own leaderboard so players can earn rank without affecting their Team Arena standings.

Bonus Rewards for Dungeons

Each day when you finish a unique path for any explorable or story dungeon, you’ll receive a bonus reward for completion—1 to 3 gold for explorable dungeons depending on their length and difficulty, 50 silver for story dungeons. Guaranteed coin rewards that previously dropped from bosses in dungeons have been removed in lieu of these new rewards for dungeon completion; all other drops off of bosses have not been changed. Now you have even more incentive for braving the hazards of the dungeons of Tyria!

Champion Loot Updates

All of the champions in the game will now award a new bonus loot bag upon their death if you qualify for loot rewards on that boss when it is killed. These bags have a chance to contain rare crafting materials, items that award skill points, and more!

Mini-Game Rotation System

Both Captain’s Council candidates have promised to introduce a new rotation of exciting competitions each day. The initial rotation includes the well-loved Sanctum Sprint, Keg Brawl, Southsun Survival, and Crab Toss. Speak to the activities NPC in Lion’s Arch to participate in the competition of the day!

Improved Effects Level of Detail System

Effects like fireballs, streaks that trail behind a sword, players’ footsteps, and even the fiery breath of dragons are all part of the beauty of Guild Wars 2. In situations where all of that beauty can start to take away from the visual clarity of the battlefield, this new system will slowly start reducing the detail of each effect in order to increase combat visibility when many effect types are overlapping. When action gets intense in dungeons, PvP, the open world, and WvW, this system will let you see more of the action.

World vs. World Supply Mastery

Become a master of supply with the Supply Master World vs. World ability line. This line includes benefits like increased supply pick-up speed, Courier Speed when you pick up supply, and a chance to get supply back when you use it!

Permanent Finishers

We’re adding support for permanent Finishers! With this release, you’ll be able to sort through your available Finishers and choose the one you’d like to use as a default. Change your mind and change your Finisher! Rank up for rank Finishers, or keep an eye on the Gem Store for a new selection of Finishers. Finishers can be used in both PvP and WvW!

Release Notes

Read detailed notes from our developers about what’s new in this release.